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Simmons Says: Mayweather-McGregor isn't a fight, it's a circus

In this Nov. 11, 2016, file photo, Conor McGregor stands on a scale during the weigh-in event for his fight against Eddie Alvarez in UFC 205 mixed martial arts at Madison Square Garden in New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

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There is really only one reason why the ridiculous spectacle that is Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor has finally been arranged: There was too much money for everyone not to make this apparent fight happen.

The buildup will be all freak show to the Aug. 26 date in Las Vegas and we know this much. The circus usually sells well in Sin City. The boxer vs. the mixed martial arts champion. The most popular recently retired figure in his sport vs. the loudest, brashest, financially-wise athlete in the UFC.

The perfect rarely hit boxer, appropriately nicknamed Money. The opponent with little chance of winning, this being staged as a boxing match, will try to tough his way through 12 rounds in a sport that isn’t his, against the most efficient, non-electric, fighter of his generation.

We shouldn’t care about this but we do. We shouldn’t watch, but we will. We shouldn’t pay whatever they will charge for pay-per-view, but we will find a way.

That’s the crazy rub, here. This should be easy for Money Mayweather. But what if it isn’t? What if McGregor is Rocky to Mayweather’s Apollo Creed. That was a wonderful movie. This is multi-million dollars worth of real.

We should go out for dinner that night. We should change the channel. The sad part: We won’t.

THIS AND THAT

Immediately after the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1967, the NHL went from six to 12 teams. The Pittsburgh Penguins were among those new teams. Over these past 50 years, the Penguins have won five Stanley Cups, lost once in the final, had 13 players win scoring titles, seven players win Hart Trophies. The Leafs, as they say on Jeopardy, just watching. No Cups. No finalists. No scoring champions, none in the 69-year history of the Art Ross Trophy ... If there was such a thing as a Conn Smythe Trophy winner for executives, it would certainly have gone to Jim Rutherford, the Pittsburgh GM who held onto Marc-Andre Fleury, and got him to agree to waive his no-movement clause for expansion purposes, while keeping the story under wraps. Without that Fleury manipulation, you’d be talking about another champion ... Department of impressive: Pens coach Mike Sullivan. The last coaches to win back-to-back Cups, Scotty Bowman, the overly blessed Glen Sather, Al Arbour and Fred Shero. All are in the Hockey Hall of Fame ... Teemu Selanne is the one sure bet to get the Hall of Fame call a week Monday. After that, my hope is Paul Kariya gets a call. This is a rather thin and challenging year for the 18 Hall voters ... The new deep thinkers don’t care much for plus-minus stats, but I’m still blown away that Bobby Orr was +124, +86, +84, +80 in four individual seasons in Boston in the ’70s. In most seasons, the NHL leader is below +40. Ryan Suter tied for the lead this year at +34.

HEAR AND THERE

Why does it matter whether Auston Matthews wears a ‘C’ with the Maple Leafs? Every dressing room in hockey knows who the leader is. You don’t have to put a letter on to designate that. Gary Roberts never wore a ‘C’ in Toronto but he was the obvious leader of the Leafs teams he played on. If Matthews is the leader, and he sure seems to be, then there’s no need to designate him as such until management believes the time is right ... Curious to see what the Leafs will end up doing with free agents Matt Hunwick and Roman Polak. If they truly want to upgrade their defence, they have to say goodbye to one, if not both of them ... Amazing what kind of roster the Nashville Predators have put together with just about the smallest front office and scouting staff in the NHL ... Terry Pegula paid $189 million US to buy the Buffalo Sabres, in a hockey-crazed market, and operate the arena as well. Bill Foley paid $500 million for an expansion team in Las Vegas, with hope it might work ... When I did my Top 100 players of all-time list in December, I ranked Sidney Crosby 10th. I would like to move him up now. My top four were Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Gordie Howe. I had Jean Beliveau fifth and would keep him there. At the age of 40, Beliveau had 22 playoffs points in 20 games on a Stanley Cup winning team. He’s still No. 5 for me. Crosby now moves into the conversation with Rocket Richard, Bobby Hull, Doug Harvey and Guy Lafleur for 6-7-8-9 on the list. If I was doing it again, I’d jump him from 10 to six. He can’t get in to the Top 4 no matter what. Five-six is possible. Six for now.

SCENE AND HEARD

Kevin Pillar, before being suspended for a homophobic slur: .305 batting average, six home runs, 12 RBI, 27 runs scored. Since his suspension: batting .170 in 94 at bats; two home runs, five RBI, 13 runs scored ... In Jose Bautista’s best big league season, he had a WAR (wins above replacement) of 8.1. This year, he’s a minus in the WAR department. After hitting .317 and nine home runs in May he has one homer and a .122 batting average in June. Bautista and Kendrys Morales, by the way, have combined to hit into 21 double plays. That’s the highest number in baseball for apparent run producers ... Bautista, by the way, is on pace to strike out more than 160 times this season. In his eight previous seasons in Toronto, he has never had more than 116 in a season. Three times he had more walks than strikeouts. This year, he’s striking out 1.7 times more often than he’s walking ... Look out: The hot Edwin Encarnacion is back. This past week, he hit .400, four homers, nine RBI. He’s hitting .361 for the month with an OPS of 1.215 ... The Raptors are trapped in Kyle Lowry’s pending free agency. They’re in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ scenario. They’re crazy to sign him for maximum money and maximum term. They probably can’t get him for the money and term they want to deal. They keep him, they may regret it. They let him go, they will regret it. Over to you, Masai Ujiri. Magician time.

AND ANOTHER THING

Wayne Parrish appears to be the leading candidate to be next commissioner of the CFL. If you want to blame him for anything, blame him for hiring me, 30 years and six months ago, and for deciding we needed a Sunday notes column each week ... I read nine Tweets on Saturday afternoon informing me that Nathan Beaulieu had been traded, which is the most I’d ever read about Nathan Beaulieu ... Is this summer in which every Saturday looks like it’s about to rain? ... I had a bet that Crosby would first pass the Stanley Cup to Fleury. I lost the bet. He passed it to the veteran Ron Hainsey first. “You should have told me beforehand,” Crosby told me afterwards, while still carrying the Cup. “We could have worked together on this.” ... Felt awful for Kevin Pollock, a very good referee, who blew the whistle too soon in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, possibly preventing a Game 7 ... I wouldn’t want the all-consuming jobs of Bob McKenzie, Pierre LeBrun, Darren Dreger, Elliotte Friedman or Ren Lavoie for anything, but I will say this: Man, are they great at what they do ... Rest in peace, Don Matthews, a personality larger than the entire Canadian Football League. A pill to cover, a pleasure to play for, a man never lost for words. For more https://tinyurl.com/y8otzct7 ... By the end of the Stanley Cup final, inside the dressing rooms of the two participants, it was difficult to tell which players was less popular within their group: P.K. Subban or Phil Kessel ... Kessel has five years and $35 million remaining on his contract. He scored one even-strength goal in Pittsburgh’s final 11 games, the fifth goal in a 6-0 win by the Pens ... Happy birthday to Lou Brock (78), Bruce Smith (54), Kurt Browning (51), Sandy Alomar Jr. (51), Amari Cooper (23), Chris Coghlan (32) and Martin St. Louis (41) ... And hey, whatever became of Patrik Stefan?

WILL SLUMPING OFFENCE AFFECT JAYS TICKETS?

In the season in which the Blue Jays were truly reborn, they led the American League in runs scored, doubles, home runs, total bases, RBI, OBP, slugging and OPS. And just about anything else you can think of offensively. The team was a show almost every night.

Today’s remarkable attendance remains a reflection of that magnificence. And that was only two seasons ago.

As of Saturday afternoon, the almost-same Jays were 14th in the AL in runs scored, 12th in batting average, 12th in on base percentage and 13th in OPS.

In 2015, the Jays led the AL in doubles. Right now, they have hit the fewest number of doubles and triples, combined, in the league and rank 29th in all of baseball.

All this is happening as Justin Smoak is having an Edwin Encarnacion-type season.

The lineup in 2015 had Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Russell Martin, Troy Tulowitzki, Kevin Pillar, the combination of Ryan Goins and Devon Travis at second base, just as it almost does today.

The difference is age, but mostly it’s performance. Ticket sales went crazy in Toronto as did the Blue Jays offence and winning. Without either right now, offence or winning, what does the future hold for next season’s sales and for years after that?

EXPANSION DRAFT IS NO BIG WHOOP

Never has there been more hockey noise created than the sound around the NHL expansion draft which will put a team in Las Vegas next season.

For virtually every day of the past 10 months, we have heard chatter and speculation about who might be picked, who might be traded, what kinds of deals are out there for Vegas GM George McPhee to make, and the reality of most it: Big whoop.

The Maple Leafs might lose Ben Smith or Kerby Rychel or, if Las Vegas hasn’t done its homework well, Martin Marincin. They might lose Matt Martin if the Golden Knights want to pay a lot. For that, Leafs’ ownership has been paid more than $22 million, their share of the expansion loot.

The same is true across the board in Canada. Some mediocre talent will be left available and the odd draft pick will be exchanged so Vegas won’t pick another mediocre talent.

Maybe it’s the lack of daily hockey conversation that has so enriched the expansion talk. But by the time the roster is selected on Wednesday, you will more than likely be underwhelmed by what constitutes a new NHL team.

The NHL got more than its money’s worth in the $500 million U.S. in expansion fees from Bill Foley in Vegas — in free advertising, television and radio sport talk, it got even more than that.

JAGR NOT GOING AWAY

Jaromir Jagr wants to play until he’s 50.

The question is, will he end his career the way Chris Chelios did, trying to hang on as long as he can, somewhat uncomfortably, without any real interest from most NHL teams?

Jagr, 45, has been an important contributor to the Florida Panthers the last few seasons and truly one of the great scorers in NHL history. But there is some doubt now whether the Panthers, wanting to play a more up-tempo style under new coach, Bob Boughner, will have interest in pairing the speedy Slava Barkov with the slow-the-game-down, cycling, Jagr.

Jagr is the kind of player who has to play in the top half of the lineup: When he played in Boston in a bottom-half role in 2013, he scored two goals in 33 games, none in 22 playoff games. He’s still reasonably capable at his advanced age, having finished with 46 points, but even that was a drop of 20 from the year before.

Who might want Jagr? Maybe Las Vegas? The lowest-scoring teams in the NHL last season were: Colorado, New Jersey, Arizona, Vancouver, Buffalo and Los Angeles. Not many of those places seem like a fit for Jagr.

Getting to 50 seems beyond a longshot for Jagr. Getting to age 46 or 47 on the ice seems challenge enough right now for the free-agent winger.